Tarragon
by praskovya
Summary: A/U: Their debt resulted more expensive that what they intended to pay. Piper/Alex, in another prison (os).


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Piper never notices. Ever.

It's not until she wakes up in the middle of the night and flips her pillow looking for the cold side of the sheet, that she sees Alex laying in the opposite bed.

Oh, but the relief. Physically, its like a crushing weight immediately leaves her body, allowing her to breathe, to give thanks to whatever deity is responsible for letting Alex make it again. Alive.

Sleep leaves her, and her heart is beating so loud that she thinks it might wake Alex. Maybe guilt for falling asleep in the first place, and not been strong enough to wait for them to bring her back.

She sits on the edge of the bed, and covers her face with both hands. Trying to shake the fear, to change their current reality... Perhaps if she closes her eyes hard enough to the point that they hurt, reality will yield, and admit this was just a fucked up nightmare -like those prank television shows. _It's just a joke, wave at the camera. Can you see it? Can you see the camera behind those bushes? It's over there_.

But Piper doesn't see the camera. She doesn't really see anything other than Alex laying in front. Alex and the thick gray walls, that's all the external input her brain can register. Enough to remind her yet again of their twisted luck and disastrous choices.

She stands up, very quietly. Any audible disturbance could result in unwanted punishments. Positive or negative, they don't discriminate here. With the negatives you could end without food, without outside time, and if they are moody you could end without everything: directly into solitary. If they get you, these are the ones you want. You know the outcome, you know the estimated time, it's more predictable. Better.

The positive ones are the true damaging. They can do anything to you. Like, _literally_ anything. She knows because they do it with Alex, not as punishment, but as routine.

Piper doesn't know how, or _why_ they chose Alex. When they first got here with a group of what she later discovered where refugees, the guards performed numerous labs tests on them. Blood, urine, serology, sed rates... everything.

Apparently Alex won the lottery, because her physiology had whatever it was they were looking for. So they now take her regularly, through rooms and corridors in which Piper has never been, and which only a few of other lucky prisoners have successfully avoided. All because of their genes.

Piper crawls towards the iron bars which separate their cells. Above her, the red light of the alarm system flashes periodically, dimly illuminating their cells every few seconds.

Piper uses this to examine Alex after she was gone for six hours or so. The first thing Piper notices is that she's naked, and her sheets have rolled down enough that they are just covering a portion of her lower back and legs.

The light goes out, and again Piper waits.

It always feels like an eternity when they take Alex, and if she's not awake when they bring her back -like tonight- the night extends painfully long, as she has to somehow figure what happened while her girlfriend while she was away.

For a split second the room illuminates.

Piper's eyes are glued to Alex's back, where she can see the first marks of what she suspects are the result of Alex's resistance against the usual belts they use to restrain her.

This brings the saddest grimace into Piper's face. The fact that despite god knows how many days they've been doing this to her, Alex always fights back... it just shakes her to her bones.

Again the room its dark. Leaving Piper cemented to those iron bars that separate the two of them. And she just waits, quietly. Still not moving, eyes fixed onto Alex's shape.

Another second of red light bolts through the cell, enough for her to watch the barely noticeable bandages on Alex's wrist and forearm. That's enough for her to connect the missing dots, Piper doesn't need to see more.

But even though she was expecting it, her heart still aches. With her left hand she wipes the warm tears streaming down her cheeks, because _how_ she wishes it was _her_ and not Alex on those chairs.

The red light flashes again, this time Piper focuses on Alex's face. One second and the image is burned in her retinas, and then in her head for the rest of the night.

Alex is sleeping, soundly. Her black hair falls messily onto her neck and shoulders, and then onto the grey sheets of the thin mattress. Her lips are slightly parted, breathing steadily.

But is a facade, Piper knows it. They drug her whenever their trials end, and she yet fails to know why they do this, but deep inside she knows is better this way. For Alex, is better for Alex.

It's getting late, and another day awaits tomorrow.

Piper takes a deep breath, to try and shake this uneasiness that bathes her day and night.

Just a few more months, and their plan will be ready.

She just prays that Alex survives it.


End file.
